just one yesterday (ashes to ashes)
by BittersweetSonata
Summary: She watched him die, but now he's here and she's the only one who can see him. "I need your help." She might just be crazy enough to give it to him;—natsu ო lucy


**chapter title: **paint the sky

**summary: **She watched him die, but now he's here, and she's the only one that can see him. "I need your help." She might be crazy enough to give it to him.

**pairings: **nastu&lucy (main), gray&juvia, gajeel&levy, jellal&erza

**setting: **it is most definitely au

**notes: **i don't know what i'm doing anymore. like, i _want _to finish a story (which i have yet to accomplish) but then i have all these other ideas that i want to try and ugh. thus is my struggle. _anyway, _i seriously have no idea what genres to list this under. mystery? supernatural? angst? drama? crime? suspense? _romance_? how about: all of the above. **  
**

**thoughts: **yep, the title is a song by Fall Out Boy, and then something i made up. i couldn't decide which i liked better so...until then, i'm going with the parenthesis thing. uh huh. btw, _The Book Thief _is a beautifully heart-wrenching roller coaster. you should totally read it.

**disclaimer: **own nothing

* * *

"_People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, _

_but to me it's quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, _

_with each passing moment. _

_A single _hour _consists of thousands of different colors." _

– Death, _The Book Thief _

* * *

_._

_{Anything you say can and will be held against you}_

_._

* * *

"Have you seen the new kid?"

"Doesn't he look a little weird to you?"

"I heard that his father just up and left him when he was little."

"I wonder if he's some sort of criminal?"

"Oh! That's so scary! A criminal in our school?"

Lucy rolls her eyes at the whispers around her, instead choosing to focus her sole attention on trying to bounce a pen off of her desk. She's hunched over the slab of wood, eyes narrowed, hand poised, and tongue sticking just the tiniest bit out of the corner of her barely parted pink lips.

In one swift movement, she gracefully slams the cap of the pen down onto the wooden surface, and draws her hand back. A satisfied smile dominates her lips as she watches it fly across the room and hit a particularly loud and obnoxious gossiper on the back of the head.

"Ow, dammit!"

The teen rubs the back of his head and turns in his seat, an angry scowl on his face as he searches the students seated behind him. The blonde hides her smile and sparkling eyes behind her biology textbook, pretending that she hasn't just sent her ballpoint pen hurtling in his direction.

After a few minutes of fruitless searching, the furious teen slumps in his seat and turns back to his whispering friends. Lucy smiles to herself and closes her book. She raises a brow at all the 'hushed whispers' floating around the room, before sighing heavily.

The blonde has long since decided that her classmates had never learned the proper art of whispering, because the room sounds like a barnyard. Except instead of cows mooing and chickens clucking it's curious students swapping gossip and epically failing to do it discreetly.

"What if he's like…a _murderer_?" one particularly irritating girl gasps, eyes widening.

Another teen rolls his eyes and scoffs. "_Really, _Karen? A murderer? If he killed somebody, then why would they even let him enroll here? You know, in a _school_?"

Karen's obnoxious ruby red lips turn downward, and she crosses her arms. "What? I'm just saying."

Lucy narrows her eyes and drums her turquoise painted nails on her desktop. Talk like this hax been going on all day, at least, she's heard it from the moment she had set foot in the school earlier that morning. Apparently, Magnolia High has a new student who is the talk of the _entire _school. Well, excluding herself, anyway.

Most of her class hasn't even _seen _the teenager, and yet here they are, making up stories, weaving hurtful lies, and exchanging them like there's no tomorrow. It's really starting to grate on the blonde's nerves, and she's about to snap.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, for her fellow student body), their teacher – Mr. Conbolt – walks in at this precise moment, effectively silencing all whispers and chatter. Instead, he brings with him dead and slightly suffocating silence, because after he strolls in, so does someone else.

The new kid, apparently, from what Lucy can tell. And when she sees him, her brows shoot to her hairline.

He isn't taller per say, but has somewhat of a lead on her height. And dude, is he ever cut. Like seriously, she can see his drool-worthy six pack and the strong triceps that make his graphic gray tee look extremely flimsy. His jaw is firm and his complexion's a nice tan – and she has to wonder, how does he manage to stay that way in November?

He has eyes like two burning coals, and she can see the spark in them when her classmates suddenly cease all forms of verbal communication once he steps into the room. His hands are jammed into the pockets of his dark gray jeans, and his navy converse-clad feet scuff the tiled floor.

Lucy quirks a brow at the white scarf wrapped around his neck. Sure, she knows it's pretty chilly outside, but it is nearly lunchtime, and he's been here all day. So, hasn't that been enough time for him to take it off? She squints at the pattern, and something twists in her chest when she realizes it looks eerily similar to dragon scales.

The strangest thing about his appearance though, has to be his hair, she concludes. It is a bedhead of a mess, consisting of cotton candy _pink _locks sticking up every which way. Lucy has always liked pink, but this is a completely new thing to her. At first, she thinks he's dyed it, but that conclusion gets thrown out the window when she notices that his eyebrows are also the same color.

Macao Conbolt clears his throat, drawing her attention and that of the other students. The older man raises an arm and motions in the general direction of the guy standing at the door. "Er, class, this is Natsu Dragneel. Natsu, this is your Fiorean History class."

Natsu, the blonde smiles a bit at the name, gives a nonchalant wave. "Hey."

Macao scratches his head and looks between his students and the teen standing at the door. "Okay then. You can take your seat, Mr. Dragneel," his eyes scan the sea of nervous teenagers before landing on a certain blonde head. He sighs in relief, as the girl seems impervious to the sweating and weird expressions of her classmates. "Right there, next to Miss Heartfilia."

Lucy slowly looks up from the Biology assignment she'd been putting away. All eyes are on her, and she spares a quick glance over at the empty seat beside her. It had previously belonged to a girl named Kianna, but the violet-haired teen had moved only a few weeks before, leaving it very vacant and very available.

Natsu shrugs and walks over before unceremoniously dropping into his new seat. Several sympathetic glances are cast her way, and Lucy tries her best to ignore them as she pulls her history textbook out of her bag. Her chocolate orbs flicker over to her left, and she has to resist the urge to jump when they make contact with the burning onyx ones belonging to her new seatmate.

He smirks at her, and the blonde feels something constrict in her chest. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she turns back to the blackboard. The rest of her history period is spent trying to pay attention to Macao Conbolt's lecture on the fall of Extalia and attempting to ignore the piercing stare of one Natsu Dragneel.

* * *

"So, the new guy, have you seen him?" Cana Alberona questions once lunch rolls around.

Lisanna Strauss clasps her hands and almost knocks over her chocolate milk carton. "Oh, I hear he's super _handsome._"

Juvia Lockser smiles and pulls a wrapped sandwich out of her navy, forget-me-not printed lunchbox. "Does Lisanna plan on falling in love with this mysterious new student?"

The girl with the pixie cut blushes, and Erza Scarlet stabs at her chicken salad before huffing. "Well, _I _wouldn't _know _what he looks like because he's not been in any of my classes so far."

Cana slaps her on the back. "Oh, cheer up. You've got Jellal, you don't need to see the new kid."

Erza is about to protest, when the brunette turns to the quiet blonde sitting beside Juvia. "Hey Lucy, are you still on earth with us?"

Throughout the entire conversation, and ever since she'd first seated herself at the table, their usually perky and bubbly friend had been silent and brooding. She hadn't spoken a word other than a few occasional mumbled phrases to herself as she broke off bits of her sandwich.

Lucy looks up and blinks. "Huh?"

Levy McGarden smiles. "Oh, there she is." she pops a grape into her mouth. "We've been talking about the new guy while you were, y'know, spacing out."

The blonde turns a light shade of pink and clears her throat. "Oh uh, sorry. I kind of…lost my pen in Fiorean History and I wasn't able to recover it before the lesson. So I wasn't able to take notes on the fall of Extalia and how much their government sucked."

Juvia raises a brow. "Juvia thought that you had several ballpoint pens."

"Yeah well, it's only two months into the school year and I have no idea where they've all gone."

Levy turns her face to the side and coughs into her hand. "She bounces them off her desk and aims them at people who annoy her."

Mirajane Strauss giggles behind her hand. "So Lucy," she leans toward the blonde and smiles, "I heard from Laki that you shared history period with, oh you know, Natsu Dragneel. Is that true?"

Cana almost chokes on her green tea. "Lucy, you have history with the new guy?"

"That's not all." Mira winks at the mortified blonde. "I hear that he sits next to her."

Lisanna grins. "Is he as handsome and mysterious as the rumors say?"

"Point him out to us!"

"Yeah! Show us which one he is!"

Lucy gulps and shrinks away from her suddenly demanding friends. "Okay, okay." she waves her hands. "Give me a sec."

Pulling her legs up onto the bench, the blonde balances herself on her knees before stretching upward. She shields her eyes against the harsh glare of the luminescent lights as she scans the sea of colorful heads, looking for one in particular. She frowns.

"That's strange – I don't see him."

Cana pokes at Levy's tray of food experimentally, staring at it like she's half expecting it to come alive. "I don't blame him; the food here sucks."

Levy smiles sheepishly. "I know. I forgot my lunch today, but I didn't want to totally starve." she sighs down at her untouched food. "But I think that maybe it might have been the better option."

Lucy returns to her normal sitting position before smiling at her best friend. "Good thing I brought two sandwiches today, then."

Outside, the sky is a mural of grays, purples, and black.

It's going to rain.

* * *

**end notes: **i thought about writing this in first person. like, _seriously _pondered it. but i didn't, so. that's that i suppose.


End file.
